About Brian Expertise I can help set up a weightlifting program, give suggestions on specific exercises and how to deal with injuries. We can discuss your goals and effective ways to work towards them. I compete at powerlifting, and have been weightlifting for over 15 years.
Experience 15 years weightlifting experience, including competitive powerlifting.
Question Hi, I am 28, male and just starting to lift weights at the local gym. I just sent you 3 questions, hopefully you can reference them as regards my current question.
I signed up for personal training sessions at the local gym. The trainer recommended purely isolation exercises for each muscle group as follows:
Upper body-twice a week, Lower body-twice a week. As I said, using, isolation exercises, such as curls for biceps, bench press for chest, etc.
I am an ectomorph/hardgainer. I heard that using workouts with a lot of compound exercises is better in order for a hardgainer to put on muscle mass. Is that true? Can I get away with isolation exercises to get big muscles? What do you recommend as a routine? Things to keep in mind?
Thanks,
Jesse
Answer Jesse - I don't think I'd consider curls and bench press to be isolation exercises. Isolation exercises are more like concentration curls, and pec deck.
Since you're just starting out, I would follow the advice of your trainer. The main thing you need to do at this point is to "teach" your muscles to do the exercises. Part of this is technique that you can only learn by doing. So, doing upper bod twice a week and lower bod twice a week, you'll get a fair number of "reps" in at each exercise. Stick to that plan for a while (I dunno, maybe 3-6 months), and then you can move on to more advanced regimines.
